BNB Funding-Squeeze — 15m

Status: Regime entry: worked in one test window, not the other · Regime #5 · Listed 2026‑10‑14 Instruments: BNBUSDT perpetual only · Timeframe: 15m · Direction: long only Frequency: ~96 trades/yr · Fees: 0.05%/side plus real funding

Why it is in the regime section, not the library

It failed the six‑check bar. It is listed under the regime bar, which asks four things of one of the two test windows: a net profit after fees and funding, still a profit without the best trade, a result above 95% of 400 random‑entry runs with the same exit, and at least 20 trades. It clears all four from August 2018 to August 2022 (268 trades, all from March 2020 on: BNB's funding history begins in February 2020). From August 2022 to August 2026 it made +4.1% and lost 3.5% without its best trade. Everything below the setup is disclosure, not a pass.

It is the short‑squeeze setup of entry #1 (4h, BTC and BNB) and entry #5 (1h, BTC only), unchanged, on 15‑minute bars.

Where it fails the full bar:

• Two windows: +4.1% from August 2022 to August 2026 (PF 1.03, 351 trades), −3.5% without its best trade.
• Cross‑asset: at 15m, BTC lost in both windows (−22.9%, −10.3%), and so did ETH (−8.7%, −27.0%).
• Drawdown: 22.0 summed points in its good window, against a bar of 20; 10.2 in the other.

It came out of sweep #7, pre‑registered on 2026‑08‑08: entry #1's frozen spec at 15m on BTC, ETH and BNB in both windows, at the perpetual's 0.05% taker fee. The sweep found nothing that passed and set the library's sub‑daily floor at 1h. It ran before the random‑entry null joined the bar. The re‑audit of sweeps #1–#10, pre‑registered on 2026‑10‑14, ran the null on every window test from those sweeps that made money, made money without its best trade and had at least 20 trades: thirty in all. With a 95th‑percentile bar, about one window test in twenty clears by luck alone. Of the thirty, one or two would by chance; eight did, this one at the 99.5th percentile.

The setup (compilable spec)

Market: crypto BNBUSDT perpetual, 15m trading timeframe. Longs only. Entry (15m, same bar): funding_rate < 0 AND RSI(14) crosses back above 30. Exit: trailing stop 2×ATR(14) below the highest price since entry. Fees: 0.05%/side (Binance USDT‑M taker) · funding charged and credited at every settlement held through.

Evidence: two windows on Binance spot candles

Returns are per‑trade percentages summed, like every return in the research log. The price path is Binance spot candles, as in every August sweep; the funding the entry reads is the real USDT‑M perpetual series. Holding BNB made +1956.5% and +106.4% over the same windows; the strategy could trade the first only from February 2020.

• Random entries, 2018–22: 400 runs of the same exit on random bars had a median of −28.1% and a 95th percentile of +10.9%. Random 15m entries with this exit lose: at about 260 trades a run, the round‑trip fees alone come to about 26 points. The random bars were drawn from the whole window, including the eighteen months before BNB's funding history begins, when the rule itself could not fire.
• 2022–26 was not null‑tested: the re‑audit ran the null only on windows that made money with and without their best trade.
• Fees and fills: priced at 0.05% a side only. No fee‑stress or next‑open run exists for it.

The record by year

*2020 from February, when BNB's funding history begins (the first trade came on 28 March); 2026 through July. Each trade counts in the year it was entered.

• One quarter made all of its money: April to June 2021, +50.5% on 16 trades, including the best (+16.1% on 23 May). The other 23 quarters with trades netted −0.4 points between them; in its good window, the other ten netted −4.5.
• Its pace follows negative funding: 214 trades in 2022, 88 in 2025, and two from January to July 2026, the last on 19 March.
• Last high: April 2025, at +54.4% summed since its first trade in March 2020. It ended July 2026 at +50.0%, 4.3 points below.
• Last twelve months (August 2025 to July 2026): 16 trades, +2.7%.

What the result depends on

The spec is entry #1's, frozen since 2026‑07‑31, so sweep #7 had no neighbors to run, and it ran no fee stress or fill check. The same rules on BNB at other bar sizes:

The 1h and 15m rows split at August 2022, as this entry's windows do; BNB's trades start in 2020 in both. At 1h, BNB followed the same path: a strong first window and a loss since August 2022. At 4h it made money in both of sweep #14's windows. On BTC, where the library's two forms of this setup live, 15m lost in both windows.

Before you adopt it

• One quarter made all of its money: April to June 2021, +50.5% on 16 trades. The other 23 quarters with trades netted −0.4 points.
• Since August 2022 it has made +4.1% on 351 trades, a loss without its best trade, and it traded twice from January to July 2026.
• On BTC, use the library's forms: entry #1 at 4h or entry #5 at 1h. At 15m, BTC and ETH lost in both windows.
• Paper‑trade it first. Adopting it watches BNBUSDT on the 15m chart and alerts every setup — about 96 a year on average, far fewer while funding stays positive.

Every number here can be re‑run: npx tsx scripts/research/replicate-sweep7-15m.ts for both windows and every trade (the record by year sums them), npx tsx scripts/research/replicate-sweep4-corrected-costs.ts for the 1h row, and npx tsx scripts/research/null-reaudit-sweeps-1-10.ts --only "#7 F15" for the null.